#laszja

It was much quieter here on the shores of Antipaxos now that it was dark. The tourists had all gone to Paxos for the evening, and all Laszlo could hear was the sound of the waves and their footsteps crunching in the sand.

“You know, there didn’t used to be so many people here,” Nadja said, her face upturned in the moonlight as her skirts trailed behind her in clear blue water.

She’d never looked lovelier, Laszlo thought. Then again, he thought that most nights. And most nights, it was true. Nadja grew lovelier every day that he knew her.

“I know, darling,” Laszlo replied, and he did. This was not their first visit to Antipaxos, nor would it be their last. He’d seen for himself the way the island had become a tourist getaway over the last hundred years. It had come a long way from the little village that Nadja had grown up in.

“You used to be able to wander the shores at night and gather seashells,” she said, as if he hadn’t said a word. “Now they’re all gathered up by midday. You can only buy them in shops.”

And Laszlo would have gone into a shop right then and there and bought her all the seashells in the world if he truly thought that was the problem. But it wasn’t. The problem was home, or a lack thereof. Nadja’s island had moved on without her, and it was now almost completely unrecognizable. Barely anyone even lived on the island anymore, and most of those who did lived here only to tend to the tourists.

He reached out to take her hand, unsurprised when she gripped it with a bit more strength than was strictly necessary. It must have been hard, to return to your ancestral soil and find only earth and sand. Not the life you had once lived upon it.

He thought about his own island in the middle of its own sea and made a face. Neither of them could go home anymore. Not now. Not really.

They’d created a new home together, a good one, but it wasn’t the same. There was a peculiar sort of solitude to be felt when the world moved on beneath your feet, in and out with the tides, and you stayed just the same.

Thankfully, it was a loneliness that the two of them could bear together. He brought their linked hands to his lips, and smiled against her fingers when he saw the way that her irritation seemed to dissipate with the retreating waves. “You don’t like gathering seashells,” he murmured against her skin, and she huffed out a laugh.

“That’s not the point, Laszlo darling,” she said, because what he’d said was true and they both knew it. “It’s just — they crawl all over the beaches like little ants, don’t they? Never knowing the true soul of the island.”

Which, for his Nadja, had been suffering. It had been poverty and despair and really, far too many donkeys. Nadja had told him so many stories involving donkeys. Her Antipaxos had inherited a legacy of sorrow, and it didn’t have much in common with the white-sand paradise that tourists flocked to now from all corners of the globe.

“Not like you, my dear,” he said, and she nodded, looking off into the distance in thought.

“No. Not like me.”

Those tourists who came by boat in the mornings and never weathered a night on Antipaxos’s sand-and-stone beaches would never know the pain of going to bed with an empty stomach. None of them had a cursed necklace containing their mother’s screams.

Nadja had been through a lot before he’d known her. Both before she’d been turned and after. And it had come out in stories, drips and drabs, over the centuries they’d shared together. The trials and tribulations of her childhood. The sorrows that still woke her from dreams gasping sometimes.

Some nights, when she lounged against his chest and he stroked her hair, when she murmured stories that made his heart ache in his chest, he wished he could take all that suffering away from her. But other nights, most nights, he knew that decision, if it had been his to make, would have been most unwise.

Because his Nadja was strong, so strong. Bright and vivacious and savagely beautiful, with nerves of steel and a temper to match. She’d borne those indignities and she’d flourished despite them. He wouldn’t belittle her, wouldn’t intimate that she had only gained strength through adversity. No, he knew that she would have been strong no matter what her life had been. It was the soul of her, still burning with an intensity that almost hurt his eyes even after all these years. Nothing could have dimmed or brightened it.

But he also knew that if her life had been different, if her experiences had been a little sweeter and a little more kind, then she might not be the vampire she was today. She might never have been turned at all, and then where would he be? Dead as a doornail and just as soulless.

And he thought she was happy now, at least most of the time. He’d done that for her. They’d done that together. If her life had been different, they might never have had the chance to do so.

The thought of that was almost too much for him to bear.

No words whispered, no songs composed. No journeys across the sea, no nights walking hand-in-hand in the moonlight. Years would be erased, centuries, and almost nothing could be worth that.

Nothing except his Nadja’s happiness.

Thankfully, she seemed to be perfectly happy with him now, if still prone to the occasional fit of melancholy. The years had been worth it to her as well, and she smiled far more often than she frowned. She curled close to him, skin on cool skin, and murmured happy memories, too. Ones they’d created together. Ones she’d had before he was even a twinkle in his father’s eye.

Ones he was only too happy to listen to for hours, the sweetest song she’d ever composed and for his ears alone.

Maybe they could still create some of those memories now, even if the white-sand beach that stretched out ahead of them was picked clean and barren.

“What say you we go to the other side of the island, my love?’ he asked. “You know, the pebbly one. Perhaps some sea detritus got caught up there.”

Her steps paused, and she looked considering. “You know, you may be right. The little creepy-crawlies always did love Mesovrika.”

“Too right,” he said, like he had ever noticed the wildlife at all during their trips to Nadja’s homeland. He’d always been far too busy watching her. “And after…”

Her eyes lit up and that little smile stole across her face, the one that set a thrill through him that had not faded even a little bit with each passing century. “After?” she asked, voice playful, and yes, that was the Nadja that he had fallen in love with so long ago without ever looking back.

“Well,” he said, pulling her hand close and sliding it into one of his pockets. “Maybe we could get a little bite to eat. See if we can find one of those tourists that baked themselves to perfection today.”

She wiggled her fingers in his pocket, brushing against some very interesting areas. “And after that?”

He smiled. “Why, we make love beneath the moonlight, of course. Don’t we always?”

They’d come back to Antipaxos many times over the years, and while the island itself had changed, the end of their visits never seemed to. Nadja spread out on a white-sand beach, holding him close and looking far lovelier than anything else in this mortal realm. Whispered endearments that never grew trite, not ever.

A love that still made him feel young at three centuries old.

He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close and listening to her giggle, and he pressed a kiss to her cheek. Yes, he’d make as many beautiful memories as he could for Nadja, enough to blot out every stain that life had dared inflict. Again and again, for as long as the two of them lived. Which would be quite a while if he had anything to say about it.

ID: 1. Nandor, Nadja, and Laszlo sitting on a cushioned booth together, the latter two wearing matching outfits in dark blue pinstripes and pink and black lace. Nandor is leaning back, one arm running over his hair and the other stretched out along the back of the booth to rest on Nadja's shoulder. His tunic is half unbuckled and Nadja has one hand hooked in his ascot and shirt collar, pulling it down as she slumps forward over the table in front of them, hair spilling everywhere and eyes fixed intensely on the viewer. Laszlo is on her other side, arm resting on the back of the booth to place his hand over Nandor and Nadja's outstretched arms. He is smirking over at Nandor, who's gaze is staring blankly into the distance.

ID: 1a. Close up on Laszlo from behind where he sits on a couch reading some sheets of music. He turns around to face the viewer as a voice calls out, “Oh, my sweet, plump, pumpkin baby! 1b. Reverse shot to see Nadja standing there with a big grin, hands holding something behind her back. She says, “I know you have been very down-in-the-dumps since the baby Colin grew up, so I got you a sexy little present!” A pleased little grin shows up on Laszlo’s face as he replies, “Oh?” with interest.

2a. Nadja dramatically pulls the Cloak of Duplication out from behind her back, grinning. 2b. She tosses the cloak around her shoulders with a flourish and magical smoke begins to form around her.

3a. As the smoke clears, Sean is now standing there, arms out with a happy smile. Nadja does her best impression with a “Yo, Lasz!” 3b. Nadja-Sean strikes a pose, one arm behind her head, one foot kicked up, and says in her normal voice, “What do you think, my darling husband? Would a nice reaming by the boy next door cheer you up?” 3c. Tiny reaction shot of Laszlo, staring blankly.